A finer scene you could scarce desire.

A scene which one day, when the sun is high and the calm water blue, may glisten before you like a vision of heaven; or, on a wild black day of storm, may frown over at you like a prison wall of lost souls; or (as it seemed to-night), like the strange battlements of a wizard's castle, which, while you dread, you yet long to enter.
We looked across the narrow channel in silence.

I could mark Ludar's eyes flash and his great chest heave, and knew that he thought of his exiled father and his ravished castle.

The maiden at his side, as she turned her fair face to the setting sun, half hopefully, half doubtfully, thought perhaps of her unknown home and her unremembered father.

As for me, my mind was charged with wonder at a scene so strange and beautiful, and yet with loneliness as I recalled that for me, at least, there waited no home over there.
"The sun has gone," said the maiden presently, laying her hand on Ludar's arm.
He said nothing; but took the little hand captive in his, and stood there, watching the fading glow.
Then she began to sing softly; and I, knowing they needed not my help, left them.
I remember, as I made my way, stumbling through the thick heather, towards the little village, feeling that this trouble of mine would be less could I tell it to some one; and then, I know not how, I fancied myself telling it to sweet Jeannette; and how prettily she heard me, with her bright eyes glistening for my sake, and her hand on my arm, just as a minute ago I had seen that maiden's hand on Ludar's.